Church's Views on Eucharist Part 6 Calvin Final Thoughts

Calvin is right on four points., the Holy Spirit manifests the Presence of Christ. Second, we are taken up in the heavenlies where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Third there is a union with Christ and the Trinity through communion. There is a change in us. However, Calvin refuses to acknowledge a change in the elements because Christ is locally present at the right hand of the Father, so how can he be locally present at the altar. The Early Fathers would acknowledge this to be so, but they also acknowledge a change in the elements. Chrysostom talks about a change when the Holy Spirit comes upon the elements as well as Justin Martyr and others both East and West. There is a change in the element but also with Calvin a change in us. Calvin’s view is almost the same as Schillebeeckx.

My view on the Eucharist will be in the next post.

Church's Views on the Eucharist Part 5 Calvin Continued

Beloved, by eating this bread in faith, we have communion with the real physical body of Christ, and by drinking this wine in faith, we have communion with the real physical blood of Christ. The communion is in proportion to our faith. If a person partakes with no faith, there is no communion. The message of the communion meal is that Jesus' sacrificial death is our spiritual life and nourishment. To the degree that the Holy Spirit uses that message to strengthen our faith in Jesus, to that degree we have a spiritual communion with the total person of Jesus. In this way, the Holy Spirit effects what the Lord's Supper symbolizes for those who believe. Our bodies are nourished through the earthly bread and wine, but our souls are nourished through the heavenly body and blood.
Here is another way to explain what happens at the communion service. The Holy Spirit uses the communion service to strengthen our faith and thus to strengthen our subjective experience of the mystical union with Christ. The mystical union enables us to commune with the humanity of Christ as bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. Through the miracle and mystery of the incarnation, our communion with the humanity of Christ enables us to commune with the divinity of Christ. Through the mystery of the Trinity, our communion with the divinity of Christ enables us to commune with the Godhead. And the Godhead is the source of all our spiritual life and strength. (Four Views of the Lord's Supper" Matthew 26:26-28 by Grover Gunn pastor, Grace Presbyterian Church Jackson, Tennessee)

Church's Views on the Eucharist Part 4

Let us not forget Calvin. “According to this view, the bread and wine represent the body and blood of Jesus. They do not in any way become the literal body and blood themselves. We do not literally chew on Jesus' flesh with our teeth or literally drink Jesus' blood with our mouths. But when we partake of the Lord's Supper, the Holy Spirit uses the symbolic message that Jesus is our spiritual nourishment, to strengthen our faith in Jesus. And faith is the human experience of our mystical union with Christ. How can we have this mystical union with Jesus in His humanity if Jesus is now at the right hand of God and is not returning to earth bodily until the Second Coming? The Holy Spirit accomplishes this is a way beyond our understanding, not through Jesus' coming down to earth at this time, but through our mystically ascending to heaven. The Christian's identification with the risen Christ is so real and significant that there is a genuine sense in which the Christian is now where Christ is. The Christian is seated with Christ in the heavenlies (Ephesians 2:4-6). The Christian has come to the heavenly Jerusalem and to Jesus and His blood (Hebrews 12:22-24). We are where Jesus is through the mystical union effected by the Holy Spirit. Our subjective experience of the mystical union grows as our faith grows. The Holy Spirit uses the communion service to increase our faith, to strengthen our faith, to confirm our faith. Thus through the communion service, we can have communion with the total person of Christ, including His body which was broken and His blood which was shed for our salvation.

Church's View on the Eucharist Part 3

On the opposite side of Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation there is Zwingli, God bless Zwingli.. If any man’s view has permeated Evangelical Christianity it is his. His view on Communion unites Baptists and Pentecostals, non denominations and mainline Congregationalists. Zwingli said that the Eucharist is a memorial with no Real Presence, it is a pledge of God’s love to us, but nothing else. Zwingli’s heresy sounds like those who say that Jesus is not the God-Man but a good human who shows us what God is and died for us. Jesus is a token of God and so are the elements. There is no Real Presence but a Real Absence.

Church's View on the Eucharist Part 2

What about Consubstantiation? It would seem that Consubstantiation would be a good alternative since it too affirms the Real Presence of Communion without the baggage of Transubstantiation.
“Consubstantiation” is a term commonly applied to the Lutheran concept of the communion supper, though some modern Lutheran theologians reject the use of this term because of its ambiguity. The expression, however, is generally associated with Luther. The idea is that in the communion, the body and blood of Christ, and the bread and wine, coexist in union with each other. “Luther illustrated it by the analogy of the iron put into the fire whereby both fire and iron are united in the red-hot iron and yet each continues unchanged” (The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, F.L. Cross, Ed., London: Oxford, 1958, p. 337).
Consubstantiation sounds more like the heresy of Nestorianism. Nestoriansism states that Christ had two natures that were not united. They coexisted in Jesus. Therefore Mary could be called the mother of Jesus but not the mother of God. The theory of Consubstantiation as stated above that the body and blood of Christ are with, around, and by the bread and wine; yet are not joined to it. In some ways it stresses created elements as elements but it divides the substance. It is as though there are two natures on the altar.

Church's View on the Eucharist Part 1

And yet how many Evangelicals and Protestants idolize that Bible and worship it and not the God of the Bible. They are so busy proving the Bible to be true that they forget to worship the Reality of the Triune God which the written Word brings us into. My good Baptist friend asked me what I thought about Communion. He asked me do I believe in Transubstantiation. I said no. Why do I not believe in Transubstantiation is because Transubstantiation is almost akin to monphysiteism and docietism. The Monphysites believe that Christ had only one nature mainly his divine with a little bit of humanity. Docietism believes in the Divine nature with the mere appearance of a human nature. When I hear of accidents and substance; the accidents being the appearances of bread and wine and the substance being the Body, Blood, Soul, Divinity, etc of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine. I agree there is a change in the elements but the stress on the Transubstantiation is on the Divine totally disregarding the created elements of bread and wine.

An Apology

For those who read the log on the Church's Views on the Eucharist part I and found the profanities, I appologise, someone hacked into my blog.

The Nature of the Eucharist

I am fascinated by the Holy Eucharist. My step-grandfather was a Roman Catholic, and he would take his Southern Pentecostal nephew to church with him. When it was time for the Eucharist he would sneak me a piece of the Body of Christ. There is something about the Mystery of Bread and Wine becoming The Body and Blood of Christ. I was asked by a good Baptist friend how does this happen. I said it happens by the invocation of the Holy Spirit. It is a Mystery! I said. He said that appealing to the Mystery of the Sacrament was dodging the issue of how it happens. He says you actually believe that God works through juice and crackers, and I replied do you actually think that God works through paper, ink, and leather. He told me I had a good point. Why is it that Protestants can believe whole heartedly that the Bible is the God-Breathed Word of God and yet not affirm that the Eucharist by the Holy Spirit and the Words of institution are the Body and Blood of Christ. Yet even Luther would say that the Bread and Wine are the Body and Blood because the Word confirms it. God created the World by the Word and the Spirit, The Spirit who proceeds from the Father hovered over the womb of the Virgin Mary and conceived the begotten Word in the New Creation of redemption. The Spirit breathes on the personalites of men and produce the written Word of God. Yet this Incarnational principle cannot be applied to the Eucharist because that is idolatry….. More in the next Entry

More on the Trinity

Yes, I know t hat this question was a general question. Sometimes when I am busy being a worship and spirituality consultant at a church, I do not want to talk about worship or spirituality when I come home; but alas it is like a fire shut up in my bones and so I must speak. My problem is that worship is not Trinitarian. I do not care if a church confesses a Trinitarian doctrine or not. Listen to how they pray. It is Jesus this and Jesus that as though Jesus is the only person in the Triune Godhead. Even when prayers are addressed to the Father, "Father is a name for Jesus. The Holy Spirit is reduced to the essence of Jesus's Presence and not a full hypostasis. Do not get me wrong I love Jesus. I believe he is the God-Man, but we fail to realize the implication of the Incarnation for our present situation when we fail to realize what Christ did for us. It was by his Incarnation that we now sit at the right hand of the Father! Heresy, you say. Not at all. Philippians 2: 5-11 breaks it down for us. Christ who was in the form of God (form meaning structure and substance; while we Westerners tend to pit structure against substance) took on the form of a slave i.e. fallen human nature so that when became obedient to death- the death of the Cross so that at his resurrection and ascension God gave him a name full of grace that at the name of Jesus everyknee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Lord. Therefore if I am joint heirs with Jesus and sit in heavenly places with him as Paul says in Romans and Ephesians with similar statements in Colossians, then as a son I am seated with Jesus by virtue of Baptism at the right hand of the Father. I am in the position of victory over sin, death, evil, etc. However, how many of us know that we ain't thinking about any of this in our daily lives because we are trying to survive. It is a process to posses your position. This is what working out one's salvation means. We are to press on to the upward calling in Christ because he has already grasped us, but in a fallen world it is hard to realize this. This is why it says in Ephesians that by one Spirit we have access to the Father through Christ. It is the Spirit who helps us in our infirmities and weaknesses and remind us who we are as sons so we cry out Abba in our time of need. Therefore Salvation and the process of Conversion is a Trinitarian event, should not our worship be the same? How in the name of heaven are we suppose to bring people to remember who they are when our worship does not reflect the reality in which we profess. The reality of who we are in Christ and what the Triune God has done for us must be re-enacted in our worship so that we can remember. Our Liturgy must be truly Divine, so that the Spirit can dare I say rapture us up into the heavenlies where He, the Father and the Son are worshipped and glorified One God forever. Yet how we pray and worship is what we believe. Unfortunately our evangelical worship has emphasized a Unitarian emphasis on the second Person of the Trinity (to quote Martin Marty) that this the only reality people have and it is distorted. In liturgical churches the Trinity is a formula, a relic from an ancient creed that is confessed by lived. In the Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches, the Spirit is seen as an it, a gift, or a tongue, and yet Father and Son are seen as the Person like evangelical churches. My question is how in all churches and worship experiences invoke this Sacred Reality, and how can the Trinity become the Living God again in our worship where our lives are transformed and transfigured by the grace of the Spirit.

Welcome

Greetings to all who are reading this. This is my first time having my own blog yet I have commented on others. On this first post, I would like to ask all who are viewing this their views on the Trinity and how the Triune God relates to the Liturgy and worship of the Church?